Robin Sowerby

The Homeric Versio Latina ROBIN SOWERBY This study examines the versio Latina of Homer's Iliad, first made in the 1360s, from its initial printing in 1537 through all its subsequent revisions up to the end of the seventeenth century.' All complete Graeco-Latin editions of the Iliad available in British libraries have been examined. A stemma listing these editions and indicating the editor or reviser of the versio in each case can be found below (page 189). After its initial printing, the versio was revised eight times in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Conclusions about the process of revision are drawn from a collation of the first book of the Iliad; a sample comprising the first sixteen lines of the versio in its various revisions is also given in an appendix. Many of the examples in the discussion that follows are taken from this sample; the rest are drawn from various parts of Book 1. While the focus is on the Iliad, a historian of the versio Latina cannot ignore the Odyssey, to which frequent reference is made in the early stages of this study. However, no systematic collation of the versio in the Odyssey lies behind anything said of it here. Conclusions drawn from a collation of only one book of the Iliad may be thought to have only a limited validity. There is no reason to suppose that editors were consistent in their practice throughout twenty-four books. On the one hand is the tendency on the part of a less than diligent editor not to sustain the effort put in at the beginning, on the other is the capacity of the diligent and conscientious to improve with practice in performance of the task. In the light of the strange history narrated below, it is to be expected that a collation of all twenty-four books, should anyone think it worth the time and energy to make one, would reveal a number of unpredictable surprises. Nevertheless, limited though it is, this collation of Book 1, together with discussion of the versio in prefaces, has much of value to tell us of an important and practical aspect of the classical tradition. ' I wish to thank Professor G. N. Knauer of the University of Pennsylvania, who is currently engaged in compiling the entry on Homer for the Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum , for his generosity in sharing his findings with me and allowing me with his editor's permission to make use of them here. The article is more accurate than it otherwise would have been. Any remaining inaccuracies are entirely my responsibility. 1 62 Illinois Classical Studies 21(1 996) as well as something of the nature of editing in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Given the subordinate position of the Greek language in the Latin- based culture of the Renaissance, the literal Latin versions printed e regione opposite the Greek text in Renaissance editions from the mid-sixteenth century onwards were indispensable aids in the dissemination of Greek throughout Europe, offering a close literal key to the original for those whose Greek was poor or who were learning the language in schools and universities. The Latin version, the medium by which most readers approached a Greek classic, had a practical bearing upon its reception in the most basic sense. The Latin version of Homer in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries has a surprisingly chequered history, noted as such by a scholar of the time, Meric Casaubon, who examined it in the 1650s and wrote at length about it with suggestions of his own for subsequent improvement. ^ This history, which must have both reflected and influenced the reception and transmission of the poems, has not been fully told. It is chiefly interesting today for what it can tell us of what Casaubon calls the iniquitous fate of Homer in his times. Any study of the origin and genesis of Latin versions, however, must go back in time before the invention of printing, and in the present case a natural starting point is the moment when the Greek poet was first translated in the West in the early 1360s by the Calabrian monk Leontius Pilatus for Boccaccio, who then provided a copy for his friend Petrarch.^ In its first manifestation, the version was interlineal, written above the Greek in such a way as to be a verbal key or clavis.'^ Leontius doubtless used his autograph copy to explicate the text when he gave his public lectures on Homer in Florence. Agostino Pertusi has published the first 147 lines of the opening book of the Iliad from a manuscript copy that includes earlier readings.^ These may be compared with the version in Petrarch's copy of the first book by Leontius previously published by Attilio Hortis.^ In the early stage of his ^ De nupera Homeri editione Lugduno-Batavica , Hackiana . item , super loco Homerico . binae dissertationes, auctore Merico Casaubono (John Shirley: Londini 1659). ^ The story has often been told how Petrarch yearned to read the Greek text of Homer that he had been given by an envoy from the Eastern Church, how he tried to learn the elements of the language from another envoy, one Barlaam, who was the teacher of Leontius Pilatus, and how finally he read Homer in his old age through the medium of Leontius' version. See P. de Nolhac, Petrarque et V Humanisme , 2nd edn. (Paris 1907); J. B. Ross, "On the Early History of Leontius' Translation of Homer," CP 22 (1927) 341-55; A. Pertusi, Leonzio Pilato fra Petrarca e Boccaccio (Rome 1964). "* Pertusi (previous note) 169-82 gives a sample of the Greek with the Latin from the Odyssey ^ Pertusi (above, note 3) 205-19 and 200-04 for his account of the status of this manuscript, which is codex Latinus 7881 in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. * A. Hortis, Studi sulle Opere Latine del Boccaccio I (Trieste 1897) 543-76, "Appendice in." The manuscript copied for and annotated by Petrarch is codex Latinus 788(3 in the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris. Robin Sowerby 163 labours we can see Leontius really struggling with the meaning of Homer's words. When Agamemnon angrily dismisses the priest Chryses, Kpaxepov 6' £711 |i\)0ov exe^^ev (25),^ "he laid into him with harsh words," Leontius has contumacem autem ad sermonem inpellebatur precipiendo, where amongst other things he seems not to have understood the tmesis. Confusion about the meaning of the Greek has produced a Latin version that does not make sense. In the version annotated by Petrarch this is changed to contumaci autem sermoni precipiebat. In the next line Kixeico (26), "I find," is first translated as subponam and later corrected to inveniam. When Apollo is invoked as the god oq Xpijoriv d|i{piPePr|Kaq (37), "who have guarded Chryse," Leontius' translation is qui Chrisem proposuisti, where the island is perhaps confused with the priest Chryses. This is later changed to qui Crisem a pueritia defendis, where "from childhood" may be an attempt to account for the tense of the Greek and is perhaps incorporated from a gloss in Leontius' manuscript. When he has recommended the Greeks to restore Chryseis, the priest sums up, xoxe Kev fiiv lX,aaod|ievoi 7teKi9oi|iev (100), "then having appeased him we may persuade him (to stop the plague)." Leontius has tunc forte ipsum rogantes clinabitis, which inadequately renders the participle and produces a transliteration of K>.{veiv, "to make to bend." This later becomes tunc autem ipsum deprecantes mitigabitis, which is nearer in meaning, though the person of the verb is still wrong. Many mistakes are not corrected in the manuscript annotated by Petrarch: xapievx' (39), "pleasing," is not sacrum; xiaeiav (42), "may they pay," is not honorant. When Achilles assures Chryses that no one will harm him as long as he is alive, Kai eni xOovl 5epKO|ievoio (88), "and looking upon the earth," Leontius, who may not have appreciated the middle form, has first in terra viso then in terra conspecto. New confusions are introduced in the later version. Chryses brings ransom gifts that are (XTtepeiaia (13), "numberless." This is rendered by the word miserabilia, though this is perhaps a mistranscription for mirabilia. When Agamemnon agrees to restore Chryseis, Po{)A,on' eyo) ?ia6v aoov e|inevai r\ ocTio^-eoGai (117), "I wish the people to remain safe rather than perish," the earlier version, which makes fair sense {volo ego magis populum sanum esse quam destrui), is completely garbled to become volo ego populum salvum esse 8' quoddestrui. In the earlier version xfi 5eKdxTi dyopTivSe Ka?ieaaaxo laov 'kxxkXzvq (54), "on the tenth Achilles called the people to council," is rendered decima autem ad congregacionemque vocavit populum Achilles, where Leontius shows an often repeated confusion about the use of the enclitic -que in Latin. This inexplicably becomes in nona autem ad agregatorem vocavit populum Achilles , where the number is wrong and a barbarous word has been introduced. ' Quotations of Homer are from T. W. Allen (ed.), Homeri llias (Oxford 1931). The Renaissance vulgate does not differ significantly in any of the passages quoted and discussed. 1 64 Illinois Classical Studies 21(1 996) Quite apart from stumblings over the Greek, there is some incorrect, unidiomatic and peculiar Latin. Alacre (39) should be alacriter. There are many non-classical words like clinabitis and agregatorem above. The Homeric word ^"uvriia (124), "common property," is rendered by the word ensenia , a non-classical variation from xenium , itself a transliteration of the Greek ^eviov. When it first occurs (ppeveq (103), "mind" or "feelings," is rendered by essenciae, a rare word not used in the plural in classical Latin.

Load more